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$envmapmask is a materialshader parameter available in all Source games. It defines a specular mask which affects how strongly each pixel of a material reflects light from the $envmap. The mask should be a grayscale image in which entirely reflective areas are white and entirely matte areas are black. For diffuse type specularity which does not rely on $envmap, see $phong.

Bug:In Source 2007 games, using an $envmapmask which is not stored in a subfolder will cause the texture to fail loading in-game.

Alternative methods

Rather than creating a whole new texture for a specular mask, you can embed one into the alpha channel of the $basetexture or $bumpmap. Model materials with $bumpmapmust do this. Unfortunately, it won't reduce memory usage.

If you do use these commands, transformations and other such parameters applied to $basetexture / $bumpmap will also apply to the specular mask.

Note:Alpha channels embedded in $basetexture work in reverse. Transparent areas are reflective, opaque areas are matte. This is because, say, a window texture's alpha mask would be mostly black to allow for transparency -- yet that black part of the mask would also be the most reflective part. To avoid having to duplicate a texture file simply to invert the alpha mask, you can use this material parameter instead.

Note:The alpha channel isn't inverted in the Source 2007 engine for models, but the alpha channel is inverted for brushes!

Use alpha channel as the $selfillum mask instead of $basetexture's alpha. In this event this command replaces $selfillum - do not use both.

Merging Specular Level into Normal Alpha in 3ds Max

To merge a Specular Level map into the Normal Map alpha, you can create a Composite Map node with the normal map in Layer 1 and the specular map in Mask 1. Then right-click the composite map, click Render Map and save this new image to file (remembering to keep the Gamma at 1.0 and using 32 bits per pixel in the save options).